Having multiple roles at dime, I have a unique opportunity to play with all our new embroidery software. I had been playing with Stitched Snapshots Plus Software by converting my favorite vacation and adventure photos in to stitches. Then I pushed myself even more by converting clip-art in to stitches. If you’ve been following along in this 3-part Software Saturday series, you saw examples of photos and clip art being converted by Dalene McDonald and Lisa Knight.

After experimenting with photos and clip-art my mind wandered to other options. I grabbed a black sharpie and paper. I wrote the word “Love”. Using my cell phone, I snapped a photo and emailed the image to myself. I imported the image in to Stitched Snapshots Plus… and behold… my handwritten word was converted to stitches. And the crowd goes wild with endless oohs and aahs!

Isn’t that a fun technique?

Here are the step-by-steps:

Click on the Stitched Snapshots Plus icon in the top left corner.

A new window will appear. Click on Browse to locate the image you want to import.

Once you’ve selected the image, it will display on the right side of the window. Options abound on the left side of the window. I left the size untouched. For this example, I chose the Mono for the Color Mode. You’ll notice the background turns to a crisp white. The white “background” disappears – it won’t end up being part of the embroidery design.

I chose the Stippling style of stitches.

Click on the Show / hide preview button to view the effect of your choices.

Click on the Show / hide preview button again. Select the Hatching style of stitches. Click on the Show / hide preview button again.

I stitched both examples using my Baby Lock Spirit.

Stippling Example

Hatching Example

But I didn’t stop there. I wanted to see the effects of Medley Variegated Poly by Exquisite. Take a look:

Stippling Example using Denim Blues Variegated Poly

Hatched Example using Carnival Variegated Poly

Here is a fun example of unleashing creativity to see what happens. My coworker, Sam Solomon, designed and hand colored the sheet that you see. I conveniently “borrowed” it for my experiments. I photographed it, cropped it and changed the colors. How delightfully fun!

I like the free-spirited nature of the design. It’s not the expected or traditional. It’s a more artistic approach to machine embroidery that I hope you too will embrace and experiment with on your next project.

Note that if you own additional Inspirations Software, like Perfect Embroidery Pro, you can manipulate the design further. But as a standalone software, it has plenty of tools for you to create and have fun – without breaking the bank. From photos, to clip-art to your hand written words or sketches, you can create one of a kind embroidery designs.